Proposed CrossFit ranking for both RX and Scaled Athletes
I have been doing CrossFit since June 2020 and I can proudly say that I am enjoying it. I don’t do competitive competitions as I know I am way far from that. I just enjoy the fact that gymnastics, strength training, olympic weightlifting, and the likes are combined in a work-out.
I try to go 4 to 5 times a week and attend the group classes for the Workout of the Day (WOD). The nature of this WOD exercises is just fascinating since anyone can join. You don’t have to be a pro-athlete to attend one. In fact, I joined it without any prior knowledge of the WODs (Oh! Those clean and jerks and snatches still hurt in my memory. That’s the WOD on my first class). Moreover, during the execution of the WOD, it gives me some adrenaline push to do it as best as I can — finish with the shortest time possible in an RFT (rounds for time) and make the most number of rounds in an AMRAP (as many rounds as possible). I know that I mentioned that I don’t do competitions (at least the sanctioned ones) but I always try my best to make it to the top 10 of the board for the day (Yes! The scores are written in our whiteboards); at the very least, not end up in the bottom three.
Another good thing about the workouts is that they are scalable. If the workout requires a push-ups and you cannot do a push-up, you can do a knee-assisted one. If still not possible, the coaches will guide you on which one serves as good alternative. And can I say, the coaches on my gym (EindhovenGym) are simply awesome and are the best. They really try to get to know you and your capabilities so they can guide you properly. They know when they can push you further and when they should stop you from attempting something that’s too advanced for you. I think I wouldn’t be enjoying it that much without them but I will leave that up for another post.
So, what is this post all about? Well, if I have not mentioned already, my gym, EindhovenGym, is awesome and they really make it their goal to be there for us members. So when the second lockdown in the Netherlands resulted to the closure of the gyms, they have found a way to still keep us motivated. One of this is the Lockdown Games.
This competition is open to anyone, member or not, (as far as I am concerned) and runs for five weekends. Each weekend, we will receive a workout that we have to do. We can repeat it to make our time/score better but we need to send the time/score accompanied with a video before 00:00 Monday of the upcoming week (i.e. we have two days to do the workout and find our best record). After this, all participants are ranked in the following manner: RX first, then Scaled. Then from all the RX, they will be ranked from the most number of repetitions (for AMRAP) or shortest time to accomplish (for RFT). Competitors who performed RX but did not finish will then be ranked based on how far they made it. After all RX athletes have been ranked, the same thing goes for the Scalers. And this is where I see some issues. Side note: Male and female participants are ranked separately.
Let’s have the following WOD for illustrative purposes:
3 RFT (Time cap: 18min)
20 double dumbbells cleans
15 push-ups
10 double dumbbells frontsquats
5 butterfly sit-ups
RX: 22.5kg/15kg (M/F)
For example, if Athlete 1 barely misses the RX weight and uses 20kg and finishes at a time 15m23s, he is already categorized under scaled athletes. If another person, Athlete 2, attempts RX weight, did not finish and only attempts 1 full round + 8/20 DDB cleans, he will be ranked higher than Athlete 1. Another participant, Athlete 3, scaled too much with just 5kg and ended up with 10m12s, still ranks higher than Athlete 1. However, for any spectator, it would seem that Athlete 1 is stronger than the other two. And since CrossFit’s competition itself recognizes the strongest man/woman in the world, shouldn’t the competition (in any form) do it but with more objectivity in the rankings?
And this is where I would like to propose an objective way of scoring where both scaled and RX athletes gain fair treatment and where the level of scaling matters. Consider the example of the scores of 7 athletes from the WOD above:
From the record above, certain things should be noticeable. Athlete 5 almost made it to the podium which does not seem to be fair for the others. Athlete 7 who scaled (but just below the recommended weight) and barely misses the time cap by 3 reps ranked 7th. These are just some of the things I noticed (in addition to the first few I mentioned earlier about Athlete 1–3).
As a disclaimer, it might just be my feelings toward the subject but I believe Athletes 6 and 7 deserve better and Athlete 2 should not make it to the podium (in fact, did he just attempt the RX for ego boost even if he knows he’s never gonna make it?). Thus, here is my proposal. I am proposing to use some computation in getting the final score and use it on the rankings.
For RFT, the time score will be calculated as follows:
For finishers, the points will be converted as follows:
T_score = 2-(T_actual/T_cap)
For non-finishers, it will be:
T_score = Reps_finished/Reps_required
For AMRAP exercises, the T_score is simply the number of reps made.
Then, the individual exercises can (i.e. optional) can be scored individually. Doing so provides more objectivity since the effect of scaling will be attributed by the individual scores of the exercises.
Weighted exercises can simply be calculated for the ratio of the used weights and the prescribed weight.
E_w = E_used/E_prescribed
Skill related exercises (push-ups, sit-ups, double-unders, etc) can be provided a ratio at the beginning of the exercise (by the coach).
For the purposes of our analysis and simplicity, let’s say all the scaled push-ups were knee-assisted and will get a ratio of 0.65; and the butterfly sit-ups are converted to crunches and have a ratio of 0.7.
After all the time score and the individual exercises scores are in, we simply multiply all the scores. Thus, an athlete who uses RX on all parts of the WOD and finished at the prescribed time finishes with a score of 1.00 (which makes sense).
Score_final = T_score * (all E_w and all scaling ratio)
So, from the same example as above, the new scores and ranking will be as follows:
With this, it can be seen that Athlete 4 retained the top position, which I believe is deserved. Athlete 1 and Athlete 6 rounded up the podium. Despite not being able use RX weight (Athlete 1) and not finishing the time (Athlete 6), their performances deserve a podium finish compared to the others. Athlete 7 who was at the bottom of the rankings jumped to 4th place and the ranking makes sense.
This ranking method puts complexity in things however, at the time of automation, it is not something that we cannot accomplish. I think using this scheme pays off and rightfully rewards the stronger athletes in an objective manner.
